Bush argues against reform of
illegal immigration by offering the false argument we
cannot deport 12 million people. But few responsible
people in the immigration reform movement are proposing
some type of overnight Exodus-like scene of illegals
trudging across the Sonoran desert surrounded by armed
ICE agents. You would object to his false example here.

NRA -type arguments against even
reasonable gun regulations (a la
Canada) offer the false image of rounding up and
seizing 100 million guns in the US. Few responsible
people in the gun control movement are proposing some
type of overnight black helicopters nationwide army of
ATF agents raiding homes and cars seizing guns.

That is a false image just like the
Exodus of 12 million illegals.

You are doing to the gun control
movement what the Bush-ites and ACLU, La Raza etc. do to
the immigration reform movement by throwing out
inflammatory false images or choices.

We can have sensible immigration
laws that will limit the number of legal and illegal
immigrants just as we can have sensible gun regulations,
say on the Canadian model, where ownership of a gun
requires a background check, liability insurance, no
private ownership of military type weapons. I favor both
of these positions.

Finally, you mention every Swiss
male is required to keep an automatic weapon in his
home. Not so fast. I have heard that argument before. A
former Swiss soldier wrote a letter to NYT (which
I will be happy to send you) taking issue with the
American myth about guns in Switzerland. He pointed out
the Swiss police carefully review all applications for
gun ownership. The powerful military assault weapons
are rarely ever seen on the street and not used for
street crimes. Overall gun control is rigorous in
Switzerland. [Swiss
Gun Control, From
Mico Loretan,NY Times, February 5, 1989]

Also a month or so ago, while on
maneuvers, the Swiss Army got lost in the mountains and
crossed the border into Lichtenstein, for which they
apologized. As I recall they also pointed out that,
while they were carrying their weapons, they had no
ammunition. I can recall skiing in Switzerland years ago
and saw the Swiss army on skis with weapons, but they
were not used. These were clearly organized groups as in"well-regulated", not free lancers out for some
exercise.

Finally Switzerland has about 20
cantons, which have four language groups. The
German-speaking cantons dominate the others which may be
why the country has been stable since about 1800.
Switzerland is more varied than you might think and
could have been a Bosnia had historical factors worked
out a little differently.

P.S. While on business trip in
Dallas years ago, I had a loaded gun pointed on me by a"nut" who carried one in his brief case. It gives
one a sober perspective.

While most of our writers oppose gun control on
principle, or from a belief in the moral necessity of
self-defense, or from a feeling that the government
will not be there to protect us, (on the southern
border, you don`t see one armed alien attacking 50
unarmed Americans, you see 50 aliens invading the land
of one or two people,
who had better be armed) we welcome the support of
anyone on the immigration issue, while supporting their
First Amendment rights to attack our Second Amendment
rights.

The
Internet provided a copy of the letter our reader
referenced—the former Swiss soldier in question was a
20-ish undergraduate at Yale in 1989—he`s now an
economist with the (American) Federal Reserve. Everyone
in Switzerland is a current or former Swiss soldier;
it`s required by law. His point was that rifles were
different from pistols—the Swiss didn`t carry rifles on
the street for self-defense. But then, they don`t need
to, because they are in Switzerland. In any case, Swiss
gun control is nothing like New York`s—see
here for details.

The
main point, however, is that Switzerland, while a
multiethnic state, is
different from Yugoslavia—and different from the
post-1965 United States. Here`s what Peter Brimelow had
to say about Switzerland in Alien Nation:

Indeed, despite all the
failed federations and multiethnic mayhem of the past
few decades, the most frequent reaction to any
questioning of the possibility of multiethnic harmony is
still "What about Switzerland?" The recent record just
doesn`t count. OK, what about Switzerland?

Its ethnic
groups, German, French, Italian and Romansh, are
racially identical and culturally very similar.

The Swiss
ethnic groups are fragmented into a number of small,
separate political units called "cantons," each of which
is firmly under that group`s control. It`s as if
American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all lived
in and controlled several separate U.S. states. All but
four of the twenty-six Swiss cantons and "halfcantons"
are unilingual.

Religion
cuts across ethnic lines. For example, during the debate
that led to the creation in 1979 of a new
French-language canton in the Jura region of the
German-language Berne canton, the substantial minority
of French Protestants were notably less enthusiastic
than were the French Catholics.

In
Switzerland as a whole, the German speakers safely
predominate. They constitute some 65 percent of
Switzerland`s population and control seventeen cantons.
The French speakers, the next largest group, comprise
less than 20 percent and control four of its cantons.
Italian speakers, less than 15 percent, control one
canton. Romansh speakers, about 1 percent, share the one
trilingual canton. Three cantons are bilingual.

The Swiss
ethnic balance has been stable.

And anyway,
there was a Swiss Civil War (in 1847). Furthermore the
establishment of the French-language canton in the Jura
was preceded by years of minor, but nasty, terrorist
violence.

Conclusion: Switzerland is
hardly a practical model for U.S. ethnic policy. [Alien Nation,P.
126 of the paperback edition.]

Peter Brimelow, who as a
refugee from a Second Amendmentless homeland doesn`t
know one end of a gun from another, writes:VDARE.COM is not going to take a position on gun
control—except to say that immigration control should
get at least as much attention.